Dirty Little Secret
by Abvj
Summary: Chloe loves Lucas because she can’t love Lex. Angst. Chlex. Complete.


_**Disclaimer:** Smallville and all related elements, characters and © Tollin-Robbins Productions and Warner Bros. Television, All Rights Reserved. This is a work of fiction, no infringement is intended, no profit is being made._

**Authors Notes:** Chlex (of course) and a bit of Chloe/Other. Angst. Lots and Lots of it. I've been a mood lately-- which translates to not a good one in the least-- and this is the product of said mood. Title taken from Sarah McLachlan. Love it, hate it, let me know, don't let me know-- just enjoy it.

For Libby who demanded I write something happy and got this instead. Poor girl, I torture her.

* * *

Her nails leave red streaks in their wake, skin breaking beneath them. Fingers are coarse and rough as they rip at her shirt, revealing paleness and black satin underneath. He is still clothed and she is painfully not and yet it does not matter-- she is never, ever vulnerable before him.

Grasping her wrists he shoves them against the mattress above her head, his erection pressing into her thigh. He pushes in all the wrong places, tells her all the right things, and she closes her eyes at the sound of them, lets herself, for this one little moment, believe. She gasps, the sound echoing off the walls and he releases her hands, pushes up her skirt.

He slows his pace, touches her exactly where she likes, where she needs. Soft, agile hands flow down his back, feeling the definition and when he looks up at her Lucas's forehead his slick with sweat and she can feel the tension in him before her hand reaches his fly. He could tell her where to touch him, how to fuck him, and she could say the things back. Match him bit for bit. But they don't.

Nothing is said. Nothing is ever said.

They know one another without really knowing one another and only one of them realizes it while the other is blissfully oblivious or painfully ignoring it.

Lucas does not kiss her, merely teases her the way she responds to, grasps her breasts with his skillful hands and nears her center. They form a mass on the bed, sheets at their feet, pillows on the floor and Chloe watches his face as she comes beneath him-- and yet she does not see him. Does not think of him.

Once she's sure she's still half alive she stumbles off the bed, away from her husband and makes her way towards the shower. Watches her mascara and eyeliner leave black veins down her pale skin. Scrubs sweat and sex and betrayal from her body.

**xXx**

Chloe loves Lucas because she can't love Lex.

Chloe fucks Lucas on hot summer nights and claws at his back, his hips. _Harder, faster_ she'll pant in his ear-- her breaths hot against his cheek, her sweat mingling with his and when orgasm takes her she won't call out his name because the name that is burning the tip of her tongue is not his. Will never be his because when she fucks him at night she is never, ever thinking of him.

She is never, ever thinking of him. Never will be. That special place on her heart where he should be, where their beautiful daughter should be, there is a man she can not love. A man who is older, wiser, sophisticated, and tough around the edges like his brother but still, so, so different.

And yet, she can not love him. Never, ever love him, and when they fuck too-- on cold winter nights when the air is as chilly as her fingers on his skin, she calls out his name, lets herself fall into his touch-- addictive and alluring that it is. He'll fuck her, hard and needy, hips meeting hips in a frantic frenzy she only ever feels with him, eyes on gray ones, fingers sliding over skin slick with sweat, and she loves it, craves it.

Never wants it to be over because what she feels when she's with him is different, so, so different than what she is used to. And when she is with him _she's_ different and she can't tell whether or not that is what she likes the most.

And then Chloe will return home. To her husband, to her daughter, and Chloe is reminded that she loves Lucas because she can't love Lex. Because Lex is dark and destined for things bigger than her, bigger than the both of them and he had told her this. Years ago, when she was young, and stupid and horribly naïve in thinking Lex Luthor could ever love her. He had told her this years before she'd settled for second best and taught herself to like it.

Lex had said on a warm sunny afternoon that suddenly turned to ice the moment he told her that he could never love her. Not like that. Not ever her.

And like an addiction she can't escape.

Chloe keeps going back, keeps asking for more. Always more because it's never enough-- and Chloe is wanton for punishment. For pain. And that, if nothing else, Lex can give her. In spades he can give that to her, because each time she is with him, each time she betrays her husband she looses a part of herself. Lex takes it and holds it for ransom and she knows the price is too high, the risks too grave and she will never, ever get it back.

He makes her thirst for things she shouldn't want and at the end of the day her mouth will still be dry and Chloe is reminded that everything she thought she wanted she has, but it's lost it's luster, just like she's lost her lust for life. And then she will make love to her husband, her loving, adoring husband whose hands on her are sweet and tender and he whispers his love and devotion for her over and over again.

Lucas will make sweet, passionate love to Chloe and she will smell other women's perfume on his neck, taste lipstick that isn't hers on his lips and Chloe also teaches herself this, teaches herself this part of him-- this part of them. Chloe teaches herself to accept this for what it is. For what it will never be.

And Chloe will be reminded-- like always, like clockwork-- that she must love Lucas, because she can't love Lex.

**xXx**

Lex fucks her like he doesn't know her name. Like he doesn't know her at all.

Which is the farthest thing from the truth because Chloe is very aware that in the end, when everything is said and done he will be the only one that does know her. Can even begin to understand her. It's a tangled mess they build around themselves when they do this, because now they are nothing, but afterwards they are something-- something tender and sweet, and loving and something she isn't suppose to have.

When he fucks her it is like she's no one, but afterwards he treats her so differently, so kindly. It should be enough to ward her off, to tell her to stay away-- but Chloe often fears that nothing will be able to do that. She doesn't understand it, probably never will, but this was Lex, and this was her, and she can't seem to stay away from the man who was so blatantly off limits.

Fuck you, she thinks, as he fucks her because she knows, she always knows that it's easier that way. When he does not say her name, when he does not meet her eyes they are not Chloe and Lex. She is not his brothers wife and he is not her husbands best friend. They are making a mistake by doing this, she knows, they both know, but mistakes are always so fun and doing the right thing has only-- if ever-- gotten her to second best.

She does not love Lex-- she lies to herself when she says this-- but she needs Lex. And as he fucks her so carelessly, so mindlessly, and she stares at his beautiful face Chloe can't help but think they are almost just one in the same. That loving Lex Luthor is pain, and she knows, somewhere inside her that this is the truth, because almost all it has ever brought her is pain.

All pain and just those few, rare moments where she feels whole, and more than half alive.

And as they come together, in waves of excruciating pleasure, Chloe wonders why, just why, she lets herself do this-- why she keeps going back to a man that does not, can not ever love her.

"Jesus," he whispers into her ear, his husky voice like hot liquid running through her and filling her completely. He moves sideways and pulls her with him. Her hair is in her face, her cheeks flush, her lips bruised from his kisses. Lex gently traces a long finger over her prominent cheek bone and brushes the blonde locks out her face.

And this was the moment, the moment that made her heart ache and that she carried with her for days and weeks to come. The tenderness should feel wrong, awkward, she tells herself. But it doesn't, and as his fingers lace so beautifully between hers she lets the moment erase the previous ones and it becomes a brand new one. Full of love and adoration. A memory that tricks her mind into believing that this was something it so painfully wasn't.

Chloe is a fool, and pushes the uneasiness that fills her as she realizes what she's doing away.

She sits upright on the bed, moves to the edge and feels the delicate touch of his fingers trial up and down her spine causing a delicious shiver in response.

"Don't do that," she says, her voice not even sounding like her own. Sounding like a desperate, shell of what it used to be-- and it's not the only thing either.

Lex gently snakes his arm around her waist, teasing her backwards and towards him.

"Don't," she repeats softly, ever so softly, but can still feel herself lean into his touch.

Chloe stares out the window and into the dark, gray Metropolis night and sighs a ragged sigh. And she knows. Chloe knows that she can never love Lex, that she is not suppose to love Lex.

But she also knows she can't stay away from him either.

So she lies back down and lets his arms wrap around him. Lets him kiss her hair, and her neck, and her cheek..

Chloe lets him do these things and longs for tenderness and pain.

One is never, ever without the other.

End.


End file.
